Hi all,
In the conclusion of this series on sexual love and the gospel, we must realize if we truly believe Christ is in us, then how we treat our bodies and with whom we join ourselves, is a reflection of our faith.
If our lives are a means by which Christ brings His kingdom to earth, bringing us and those we are in relationship with into His divine order, we must include sex and sexuality as part of the gospel message. Not separate. Not hidden away from view, with no education coming to our children until they enter pre-marriage counseling.
In house church, which is an extension of family at its core, with the gathering of several families, children see successful marriages as a pattern of all we are talking about. They also see the struggles. The arguments, how they settle issues. Children learn how to argue, how to negotiate, how to forgive, how to be the bigger person in a conflict.
No matter the age of the couple, from elderly to newly married or young couples, children realize there is this thing called sex that binds these couples together, they are curious about because they haven’t experienced it yet. In that context they realize when they see mom and dad and other moms and dads and kids, that sexuality can be healthy and part of a balanced married life. To the singles they see self-control and examples to live by. And all that is wrapped up in how they are in Christ. The family dynamic, including sexuality, is part of Christian life.
In short, the gospel and sexuality are part of the larger community. At the base level things like farming, pets and livestock, reproduction and death, are all part of a healthy context by which to understand sexuality and the gospel. They aren’t separated, even children pick up on these intangible elements of healthy adult marriages.
In the Roman pagan world, the slaves and the common peoples’ chief purpose was to make babies and serve the sexual desires of others. The teaching of fidelity and being one with Christ individually and in marriage was liberating, finding its appeal to the lower classes of society who were used to being used by the privileged.
Perhaps the single greatest element of setting Christians apart from Roman culture was how God viewed sex. A Roman could easily explain away just another god named Jesus, for they too had gods. They could explain away how these Christians didn’t have idols in their homes, and it was confusing to them, but it was just another religion in their thinking.
But to teach that human life had value, created in the image of God, created with purpose to be one with Him in Christ, and therefore humans should be as faithful in marriage as Christ is to us, was mind-boggling to the Roman mind. To limit and elevate sexual union between a husband and wife to be an example of a mystical union with God rather than merely a means to make babies or fulfill selfish desires, was unheard of in the Roman culture.
Life now had meaning, purpose, sexual union was a vivid picture every person in the Roman Empire would have understood, and to say that is a picture of Christ and the church….so freeing! So liberating! In the same way the stained glass windows of medieval Europe were made to tell the gospel story because everyone was illiterate, centuries earlier in a Roman culture that viewed sex as a means to fulfill selfish desires, the teaching that fidelity in marriage and sexual union with your spouse was a type of Jesus and His bride, painted a vivid image in this mystical, celestial union. Even at the end, the heavenly Jerusalem is described as looking like ‘a bride adorned for her husband.’ (Revelation 21:2) – what a vivid picture for believers that was SO different from Roman culture.
One Spirit
When Paul told the Corinthians in I Corinthians 6: 16-20 not to go to the temple prostitutes he referenced all we are talking about: “Don’t you know when you join yourself to a prostitute you become what is written; they two shall be one flesh? But he that is joined to the Lord is one Spirit with Him. Flee fornication for you are one with Christ, and He has bought you paying an expensive price, so glorify God in your bodies…”
In our world they ask the question; Am I a man or am I a woman? But the gospel is: How are we to be man and woman? Marriage has to be complimentary because only men-women ‘fit together’ or compliment one another, in the divine order of all creation. “Male and female created He them” is the foundation upon which our understanding of sexuality in the divine order of creation is built. When anthropologists and archaeologists find ancient human skeletons, the way they identify male or female is the shape of the pelvis. Women’s pelvis’s from birth are wider than a male’s, which allows them to give birth. The rest is emotional and mental issues in terms of who identifies as whom.
Trace the line of thought…
When someone believes in evolution, they believe they are a random act of nature. Follow that to its logical conclusion and it means their only purpose in life is what they assign to themselves. Morality and ethics, right and wrong, is whatever they say it is, because everything was one big accident. No purpose, no reason to live.
The gospel presents the truth – we are a unique creation, created with purpose and a loving Heavenly Father who with His Son, has prepared a home for us. We are eternal beings, being spirit-beings, and are already in eternity.
So follow this line of thought….
If a person refuses the truth that God created male and female, and that marriage between a man and woman is the highest expression and type of God’s union with man through Jesus Christ, they begin to think other things.
Gay marriage for instance is accepted, because when you reject what God says, they degrade sexuality to its most base form, as something merely for selfish fulfillment and self expression, rather than procreation and as picture of Christ and His bride. It means confusion reigns in the world as to the purpose of human sexuality, and when that is believed, a person thinks of themselves as a piece of meat, used and abused by others, leaving them searching for higher meaning, empty and feeling dirty inside.
This is why the gospel and sexuality must be presented together, one part of the other. This is the context of the gospel letter to the Corinthians, the Romans, the Ephesians, the Galatians – human sexuality and its proper context are mentioned throughout. The union of Christ and the church is seen in the sexual union of a husband and wife.
In Romans 1: 18-32 he tells of people who reject God given over to wrong thinking, even sexual pervasion because ‘they did not want to retain God in their knowledge’. The converse is true – if they wanted to know God they would understand sexuality and morality as He defines them, and dig themselves out of wrong thinking and lifestyle.
To the Corinthians and Romans sexuality and idol and temple worship were talked about, detailing the different between Christ and the local culture. To the Galatians he mentions works of the flesh that included a variety of sexual sins. Jude v4 admonishes not to turn the grace of God into lasciviousness, ‘loose living’ sexually that in that day described all manner of sexual activity. Human sexuality is throughout the letters of the New Testament.
Parents are the key educators and examples
How many children are taught their body is a good thing? That their body is a temple in which God lives? That what we might call complimentary marriage (men and women fit together by nature) is foundational and right, as seen in creation and common sense. God created masculinity and femininity, and they become one flesh.
When a society elevates and promotes the needs of self over and above the needs of others, sexual confusion is going to happen. Living in a nuclear family teaches children the needs of others over self. They see mom and dad sacrifice and work for them. They in turn, sacrifice for their parents and siblings, and in house church – they help meet needs in friends they fellowship with as part of a larger family and community of faith.
The Greek word for sexual love is eros
Eros without restraint, when focused on self, produces hurt, confusion, and lives that fall apart. Eros when understood in Christ, makes stables families, babies, and functions well within a community of faith. The very concept of righteousness, the Hebrew word ‘tsedakah’, demonstrates because we are right with God, His love flows through us outward into our world to which we are joined as part of a larger creation.
When a man or woman, child or teen, allows God’s love to condition and define their relationships, their world will be set in divine order. And this world needs divine order, wouldn’t you say?
Hope this has been interesting…new subject next week, until then, blessings,
John Fenn
